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Flashback: Lerner pleads fifth

TOP 5 scandal responses

Even as the tea party-targeting scandal dies down, the staffers at the center of the mess are turning to some of the city’s top lawyers to defend themselves against ongoing investigations and congressional inquiries.

Lois Lerner, who became the public face of the scandal as the former head of the IRS tax-exempt unit, turned to William Taylor. He’s a founding partner of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, where he has represented, among others, Strauss-Kahn and Kenneth Langone, who successfully fought prosecution in a high-profile executive compensation case.

Holly Paz, a former senior-level IRS director, hired Roel Campos, a partner at Locke Lord LLP. He served on President Barack Obama’s Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board and spent two terms as a commissioner of the SEC.

And Joseph Grant, a senior IRS official who retired in the early days of the scandal, hired Barry Pollack, who previously represented Assange and Kevin Howard, Enron’s former broadband finance chief.

The moves are an indication of how seriously the IRS workers are taking the battles that lie ahead even as the intensity of the scandal fades.

“Anybody who has held high-level positions in the government and knows Washington understands that you want to take congressional inquiries seriously and you want to make sure that you have somebody who is experienced to guide you,” Pollack said.

It’s clear that Republicans aren’t about to ease the pressure on IRS employees. Just last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp released a series of emails from Lerner where she called the tea party applications “dangerous.”

Republicans said the emails were proof that political motives were behind the targeting, something that the IRS has denied and an independent inspector general has said hasn’t been proved.

Lerner also remains under subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the panel’s chairman, called her to testify in May but she asserted her Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination after giving a statement contending that she is innocent of any wrongdoing.

Republicans on the committee voted that her statement voided her Fifth Amendment rights and said she will be called back to testify. Issa has not set a date for that hearing yet.

Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a letter to Paz in August pointing out four inconsistencies between her May testimony and later interviews and evidence uncovered by the committee.

Meanwhile, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the IRS, also has a standing request for email from Grant.